“As you have been pleased to take a certain old-womanish interest in my domestic affairs, I think it may be as well to satisfy your curiosity so far as to inform you that when your solicitor travelled in the same train with my wife, she was returning from a visit to her married sister’s house, a visit which had my sanction and approval. I can only regret that her husband’s modest means constrained her to travel alone, and subjected her to the impertinent attentions of one cad and to the slanderous aspersions of another. “I have the honour to be, “Yours, etc., “Martin Disney.” Mr. Crowther treated this letter with the silent contempt which he told himself it merited. What could he say to a man so possessed by uxorious hallucinations, so steeped in the poppy and mandragora of a blind affection, that reason had lost all power over his mind. “I spoke plain enough--as plain as I dared,” said Mr. Crowther. “He may ride the high horse and bluster as much as he likes. I don’t think he’ll ever feel quite happy again.” Yet in spite of hints and insinuations from the enemy at his gates, Martin Disney was happy--utterly happy in the love of his young wife, and in the growing graces of his infant son. He no longer doubted Isola’s affection. Her tender regard for him showed itself in every act of her life; in every look of the watchful face that was always on the alert to divine his pleasure, to forestall his wishes. Mrs. Baynham went about everywhere expatiating on the domestic happiness of the Disney family, to whom she was more than ever devoted, now that she felt herself in a manner related to them, having been elevated to the position of godmother to the firstborn--a very different thing to being godmother to some sixth or seventh link in the family-chain, when all thought of selection has been abandoned, and the only question mooted by the parents has been, “What good-natured friend _can_ we ask this time?” Captain Hulbert took his yacht to other waters in November, only to come sailing back again in December, when he finally laid up the _Vendetta_ in winter quarters, and took up his abode at the Mount, where he availed himself of his brother’s stud, which had been reduced to two old hunters and a pair of carriage-horses of mediocre quality. And so the shortening days drew on towards Christmas; baby’s first Christmas, as that small person’s adorers remarked--as if it were a wonderful thing for any young Christian to make a beginning of life--and all was happiness at the Angler’s Nest. All was happiness without a cloud, till one morning--Allegra and her brother being alone in the library, where she sometimes painted at her little table-easel, while he read--she put down her palette and went over to him, laying her hand upon his shoulder as he sat in his accustomed place in the old-fashioned bow-window. “Martin, I want to speak to you about Isola,” she said, rather tremulously.